Afghanistan has first fatal attack over film

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber killed 14 people yesterday, including 10 foreigners, most of whom worked as flight-crew members under contract with the U.S. government, officials said.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed 14 people yesterday, including 10 foreigners, most of whom worked as flight-crew members under contract with the U.S. government, officials said.The attack brought to at least 28 the number of deaths attributed to unrest sweeping the Muslim world as a result of a video parodying the Prophet Muhammad.

A spokesman for an Afghan insurgent group, Hezb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for the bombing and said it was carried out by an 18-year-old woman in response to the film insulting Muhammad and Islam.

The deaths in Kabul yesterday were the first here so far connected to the video, posted online under the name Innocence of Muslims.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement that many of the foreign victims were employees of a private company that provides services to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other organizations in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said they had been employed by a South African aviation charter company, ACS/Balmoral, working under contract for USAID as pilots and crew flying planes to provincial capitals in Afghanistan.

A spokeswoman for ACS/Balmoral, Candice Teubes, said the 10 foreign victims were thought to be South African citizens.

In the attack yesterday, the suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives at high speed into a minibus on Airport Road early in the morning, killing all 12 people aboard and two people on the road, police said.